After thinking of a name for the Roomba, I think I've settled on Cameron, suggested by Justin. Several good names were suggested, but Cameron wins out. Cameron, played by Summer Glau, is the name of the 'good' terminator in The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Fox, which is where the subject comes from. I felt that a terminator name was appropriate seeing how it had a habit of turning off my Internet connection and unplugging lamps. I did eventually get Cameron to stop turning that stuff off, but if I forget to move the rug at the front door she will attempt to clean it and then eventually get stranded on it and die. I think that either its wheel gets caught on the rug or the rug is too tall so Cameron thinks that she's going off a cliff so she can't get off of the rug. For some reason this also completely messes up the sensors for sensing the recharging station. If this happens I generally move Cameron over to the station and tell her to dock. Usually she immediately goes forward ramming the docking station, not even recognizing it. This only happens when it gets messed up on that rug though, so I don't know what's up. The style Roomba I have also has spinning brushes that come out the side of the unit which are for getting dust out of the corners of the room. Two of these brushes (I think there are 5 or 6) have snapped off now. They are made of rubber, so it's not like it's a shock that they have come off though. I've ordered some replacements and should be getting them this week.

I want to mention a website I've been visiting lately, called Cubbecraft. It's a papercraft website with easy to make designs of many popular movie, TV, and video game characters. I've made two of them so far, Bloo and Domo-kun (because they are easy), but I'm going to try making some of the more complicated ones for my office, like the Storm Trooper. I also found out that my printer will take the side of the machines, when machines decide to fight the human race. I opened up the ink flap so I could check the number on the cartridge in order to buy a new one, when it moved over to the edge like it's supposed to and then fired purple goop in my face. It turns out the color cartridge was super clogged, but I definitely was not expecting that.

A Xbox Live Arcade game called Braid came out recently. I have to say it's one of the better games I have played this year, and it's only a downloadable game. The game can best be summarized by comparing it to a Mario style platformer, but with the addition of very difficult puzzles in each level. The solutions to the puzzles are usually quite simple, but often are extremely hard to discover. You can rewind time in any level, which you must use for most puzzle solutions. It's a very mind bending game. If you're reading this and are on the fence about buying it then let me say it's definitely worth it. You get a sense of accomplishment and the ending is one of the most interesting I've ever seen.

On the more traditional game front, I decided to take the plunge and buy Madden this year. After Visual Concept's 2K series stopped making football games when EA bought the exclusive rights, I really didn't buy football games every year like I've been used to in the past. I guess I got sick of not playing football games, so I just decided to give it a try this year. At first, it looked like it would be a horrible decision. The menu system is not very good, the music is generally horrible, and it's practically impossible to find the things you want to do in the game since it's become so bloated over the years. After spending a few days with it though, I've come to enjoy it. It has this skill system which adjusts the difficulty to how well you play the game. You can set the initial difficulty by taking these Madden tests. However, these are the most poorly design tests I could possibly imagine in a game which is about playing a TEAM game. It rated my passing and rushing offense very high and my defensive play very low. My first few games I had a million interceptions and no running yards. After more games, it's adjusted to a level I think is much more accurate. My passing ability is fairly low, rushing is medium, and the passing and rushing defense are high. It's pretty cool seeing how these values change after each game.

Labels: games, papercraft, roomba

If you've been trying to view the webcam the past few days you have probably noticed that it's been down for a good chunk of that time. The reason is pretty entertaining though. This weekend I setup my Roomba to vacuum downstairs instead of upstairs where I've had it since moving. I had all my wires and stuff cleaned up so there weren't any big obstacles any more. Well in my current setup, I have a electronics cabinet that houses my wireless router which gives my computer access to the Internet and allows you to see my webcam. Well the power strip for this cabinet is located underneath it. I thought the power strip was well protected from the Roomba, but it proved me wrong... twice. Yes, both Monday and Tuesday the Roomba managed to turn off the power strip by most likely running over the on/off switch. Yesterday, it also pulled a lamp cord out of the wall. I think it's trying to save me money on my power bill or something. As for today, I don't know why the webcam is offline. There is a good chance that my local IP for the computer controlling the webcam has changed which would make it impossible for the webcam to be seen. However, there is also a chance that the Roomba again found a way to get past my well designed obstacles to prevent it from getting to my power strip. I will check to see what's going on later today.

I am also trying to come up with a good name for the Roomba. I'm thinking it should be from a TV show or movie, since that sort of thing suits me. I thought about "Buffy Bot", but if you've seen Buffy then you know that a Roomba doesn't do the things that Buffy Bot was designed to do. If you have any suggestions, post some comments.

Labels: davecam, roomba